Thursday, April 10, 2014

The Bridge to a Better Future

Vicky Hatakeyama
Section A02
Reflection 2: Response to UC Berkeley Free Speech

After reading the article about the UC Berkeley Free Speech movement that I was never unaware of, I was amazed to hear how the police, even with the whole student body surrounding them, tried to arrest all of them.  Students “challenged the university to enforce its political restrictions in view of the student body.”  With that many supporters on the student’s side for the sake of freedom of speech on campus, it is surprising to see the police trying to arrest each and every person.  The sit-in strike was a convincing and mature act that these students have done because it brought “non-violent protest tactics of the civil rights movement” to campus.  This leads to today’s new spirit of activism among students.  Each student should be able to say his or her opinion in any kind of circumstance.  There should not be any restrictions for one to speak in public. Also, because of this strike, people that were not on campus as well learned the significance of social policy and political voice.  This is another reason how we are able to live in a society where there is less racism and social injustice compared to that of back then.




Question: At this time the crime rate was rising in Berkeley.  Could this fact also have triggered the act of the “sit-in” protest? 

No comments:

Post a Comment